Thoughts on nature, meditation and cabin life

November 2014

November 27, 2014

Gone two weeks from the cabin, and the natural world turned upside down. Two weeks previously, I walked around the shores of Lily Lake, the blue water ruffled by a light breeze, ducks floating on its surface, grasses fringing the lake. The next time I visited, the lake was frozen solid, a mass of solid black etched with white lines and spots of snow. The trail up the hillside was covered with snowdrifts that I had to punch my way through, and 70-mph wind gusts threatened to send me flying onto the lake’s hard black surface. By the time I get back to the car my hands and legs were frozen.

At the cabin, the chairs I left on the deck last time, in some silly expectation that the warm weather would continue forever, sat forlornly in the snow. With the sudden onset of winter, everything becomes more difficult, even carrying all my stuff from the car to the front door of the cabin through deep snow. Inside all the water containers are frozen, so I can’t wash anything until they melt. All day long I play “Move the Containers,” a continuous game to catch the warmth of the sun as it moves from one side of the cabin to the other.

When I sit at the table to work, the cold air from the empty space under the cabin seeps up around my legs. Through every crack in the thin walls, the wind pushes, and it feels like the separation between me and the outdoor world is very thin.

And yet I can’t complain. Unlike the first white residents of this valley, I don’t have to keep a fire going all day in order to survive. When I get tired of sawing the wood into small pieces and of having to constantly tend the fire, I can take advantage of the electric baseboard heat. Instead of getting out of bed in the morning in the cold and try to get a fire going, I can turn up the heat and crawl back into the warm cocoon of my heated mattress pad and electric blanket while the place heats up. Except for the few hours when I first arrive at the cabin and have to wait for the radiators to crank up, I don’t ever have to be cold.

I’m grateful for these comforts, but I’m also grateful that I have some insight into a different kind of life, where your comfort and survival depended on constant readiness, awareness and hard work, where life had a sharper edge to it. Hiking above Lily Lake in knife- like ­wind gusts and deep snow or sitting in front of the fire at the cabin, cold air enveloping me from all sides, I can briefly touch that edge, feel its sharpness. It’s the sharpness of life, of survival. It makes me feel grateful to be alive.

November 15, 2014

I read an article recently about GoPro, the video camera that can capture images from your point of view—ideally if you’re skiing off a rock face or jumping from an airplane. The article recounts one man’s adventure while biking in Idaho of being surrounded by a running herd of elk. But far from being a magical wildlife moment, it was a disappointing experience, he told the reporter, because didn’t have his GoPro; if he couldn’t capture it and post the video for others to see, the experience didn’t mean anything.

I was appalled when I read that, and yet I realize I do the same thing—albeit on a much tamer level. Shortly after I read that article, I was hiking around Lily Lake, and the sight of golden grasses around the pond (bottom), reflected in the still pond, stopped me. But then I remembered that I had left my camera at the cabin, and started to move on until I realized what I was doing.

I wonder why it’s so difficult to enjoy the view without the urge to document it. These days, when we tell someone we just saw something amazing—a beautiful sunset, a squirrel hanging from your feeder—the first question is: “Did you get a picture?”

But a picture is never the same. Taking a photo of the Grand Canyon is different from being there. Standing on the edge of canyon, you feel the immensity and yourself as a small part of this vast landscape. You smell the pinyon pines, feel the air uplifting from the canyon, and hear the voices of other sightseers, the chatter of the chipmunks, the call of the raven soaring over the canyon. It’s a total experience, and you feel something that you’ll never get from a photo or even from a movie.

A few weeks ago, at the exhibit of Chihuly glass sculptures at the Denver Botanic Gardens (above), I saw people approach each sculpture, whip out their cameras or smart phones, snap a photo, and then move on. I was doing the same thing, until I forced myself to slow down and relax. Maybe it takes too much work to concentrate on what’s in front of us; maybe we’re afraid to let ourselves feel things, and it’s easier to record the experience, maybe to be looked at later. Or is it just that all our minds are running as fast as possible? That we live in a world where speed counts—doing as much as possible in as short amount of time as possible? We don’t have time to ponder.

On my hike at Lily Lake, I climbed up above the lake and stopped to catch my breath. Across the valley snow was blowing off the ridges below Longs Peak, its jagged summit forming a V with Mount Meeker. Below me was the lake, a startling blue, the wind brushing its surface. The smaller ponds on the south side were azure eyes fringed by grasses caught in the sunlight. The longer I stood there, the more I saw, and I felt that this was the first time I was really seeing this landscape, even though I’ve hiked up here dozens of times. If I had my camera with me, I would likely have snapped the photo and then rushed on up the hill, eager to see more views.

If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one to hear it, does it make a sound? If we’re surrounded by a herd of elk and can’t record it, is it worth anything?

November 02, 2014

At the cabin I live a blissfully ignorant existence. Without Internet (or TV or radio), I don’t know what’s going on in the world, am not checking Facebook to see what friends are posting, don’t know the latest Ebola count or, even scarier, the most recent election polls. All I know about up here is the sky, the way the clouds form, whether the chipmunks have gone into hibernation, and that the water level in Tahosa Creek is still high. The biggest news last week was the herd of elk on Big Owl Road. When I stop to chat with my neighbors, it’s often about nothing more serious than the weather, and who can plow our road this winter.

I guess I assumed that everyone here enjoyed the same quiet existence. So it was a bit of shock to find out that this small mountain community is in a bit of turmoil. This summer, the conflict came to a head over a production by the local community group of “My Fair Lady”—yes, the heartwarming musical about a London flower girl— on an outdoor stage. Apparently, surrounding neighbors loved the sound of quiet more than hearing “I Could Have Danced All Night” and started complaining.

I think there’s always been a conflict here between those who moved to the mountains to get away from it all, who just wanted to be left alone, and those who want to form a community—for whatever purpose. One particular group has provoked animosity in the area by taking it upon themselves to make sure all the county regulations are being followed, especially the ones that seek to preserve the character of this place—the kind of place that has small rustic cabins. That doesn’t sit well with the landowner who believes he has a goddamn right to build whatever he wants on his property—even if it’s a big, modern house that sticks out like a sore thumb.

The newest community group got started a few years when a couple (who didn’t live here) threatened to turn a historic structure into a porn palace—revenge apparently because the local community opposed their plans to start an ATV rental business in the same building. (Probably everyone here is united in hating the noisy all-terrain vehicles.) The group was able to save the Old Gallery, after which they turned it into a community resource—holding small concerts and art shows there and hosting community aid groups after the flood.

And then, a few weeks ago, driving to the cabin, I was shocked to see the Old Gallery gone and a huge hole where it had been, surrounded by a fence and men in work clothes. What happened? The group president/spokesman, writing in our local journal, hinted that the old building wasn’t up to county code, so they were building a new one, but responses to this claim were skeptical. A few years ago, when someone tried to tear down a small historic cabin in town, the county wouldn’t allow it, so why this larger historic structure? (I only know what I read in the newspaper.)

Apparently, controversy has dogged this small community at the foot of Mount Meeker and Longs Peak since the days of Enos Mills, the man known as “the father of Rocky Mountain National Park,” because of his efforts to get the land preserved. Even back in the early 20th century, he was vilified by local landowners who feared the onslaught (quite rightly, it turned out) of tourists invading what was their backyard.

For the time being, I’ll stay out of the controversy and harbor my own fantasy, just for the few days I’m at the cabin, that the rest of the world is as sane as the natural one—the elk that move down to the valleys every winter, the chipmunks and ground squirrels that have gone into hibernation, the nuthatches that inch up the pine tree looking for insects. I’ll continue to believe, despite all evidence from the human realm, that life can be rational and harmonious.